White Business: why banks whitewashes companies

Article written in 2019

Since the summer of 2017, mass blocking of accounts began, this was due to the tightening of the rules of the Bank of Russia. In 2017, more than 500 thousand accounts were blocked. Even if the company is law-abiding and pays taxes on time, it may still face bank financial monitoring. This happens because some types of businesses look like a money launderer, or their CEO is just illiterate.

Although checking the bank is unpleasant, especially if the supplier is waiting for payment from you, and your accounts have been blocked, nevertheless it is a necessity. Therefore, in order for the client to see in advance the likelihood of a check by the bank, we came up with a tool that shows how well the client is doing through the eyes of financial monitoring.

At first, there were doubts: would we be able to help clients, and would it save money launderers, and what would the Bank of Russia says? As a result, we went from what recommendations, as a bank, we can give to clients — we collected 17 recommendations. For each recommendation, we determined an indicator that can take 3 colors. Green — everything is fine, yellow — pay attention and red — go and fix it. Each indicator has its own weight, but in general we get the company’s reliability rating. If the rating is below 80%, then there is something to worry about and you need to follow the recommendations of the bank.

So we got the White Business product in which we implemented:

• The overall rating of the company’s reliability;
• 17 indicators with recommendations. They are updated after each operation;
• A list of counterparties who are better off not paying or paying less;
• And we immediately warn you if the payment lowers the rating. This payment can be canceled by customers.

The bonus for White Business subscribers is the opportunity to write to a compliance consultant. Consultant talks about the indicators and analyzes why the rating has decreased, or the company’s tax indicator is in the red zone. For all Modulbank clients, 3 tax indicators and a rating are free.

We have displayed the rating on the main page of your personal account. At first, it could be hidden, but then we decided that the company’s rating is an integral indicator of the client’s business. If the rating drops and the client does not know about it, then the bank didn’t care.

Nonsense when say that it is profitable for a bank to block accounts. If this were the case for Modulbank, then it would not care about clients and would not show the company’s rating and tax indicators. For Modulbank, customer loyalty is important, and it is priceless.

The White Business, as a product, has fulfilled a dream — the number of subscribers grows monthly without promotion. As a product manager, I am happy when I see that the number of blocking of real business is decreasing. Does it help money launderers? No, they simply ignore the recommendations of the bank.